Thérèse
Brenet

Thérèse Brenet whose musical
studies began at an early age received the first prize in piano
at the Conservatoire of Reims.
Then, at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique
of Paris, she received the first prizes in harmony, counterpoint
and fugue; she finished her studies in 1965, carrying off the
first prize in composition (named unanimously by the jury) and
the Premier Grand Prix de Rome. Her teachers included Jean Rivier,
Henri Dutilleux, Maurice Duruflé and Darius Milhaud. The
Halphen Prize for fugue and composition was awarded her as well,
and she distinguished herself as a prize-winner from the Coplay
Foundation in Chicago and as an honorary member of the National
Academy of History in Reims.

Upon returning from her stay at the Villa Medicis, she undertook
several educational trips to foreign countries. Notable among
these was her visit to Poland during the Autumn Festival of Warsaw,
where she met with several Polish composers and derived therefrom
a fruitful creative evolution. Returning to Paris in 1970, she
was named immediately as professor at the Conservatoire National
Supérieur de Musique (Paris).

Since then, her professionnal life has been divided between teaching
and musical creation. Ms Brenet uses atonal material which she
adapts in a personal fashion, rather than serially. She believes
that a composer should become familiar with all the techniques
of his time and assimilate them without allowing himself to be
subjugated by them. She frequently utilizes aleatoric techniques
and makes use of micro-intervals and wind instruments multiphonics
as well. Her first work commissioned par the Radio, entitled Clamavit,
for narrator, chorus and orchestra (recorded by the Orchestre
Lyrique of O.R.T.F. under the direction of André Girard
and assisted by Michel Bouquet) was selected to represent the
French section of the Unesco Composers' Tribune, whereupon it
was widely distributed abroad. Many other works have crossed the
border as well, with performances in Rome, Washington, Chicago,
Los Angeles, Jacksonville, Nürnberg, Utrecht, Tripoli, Tokyo,
Montevideo, Yugoslavia, Dublin, etc...